


Corpus Siege

by CoffeeCats



Category: Warframe
Genre: Gen, corpus-centric, even though i don't know anything about how the corpus work, game typical violence, rated t for ~language~
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-27
Updated: 2019-12-27
Packaged: 2021-02-26 05:02:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,321
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21987847
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CoffeeCats/pseuds/CoffeeCats
Summary: Invasions must be pretty weird from the ally perspective, huh?
Comments: 11
Kudos: 57





	Corpus Siege

“Deri. Hey! Hey, Deri!”

You sigh, open your eyes and glare at the two intruding crewmen from across your drink. This is the only break you’ll be getting today and you _really_ didn’t want to spend it talking to two people you don’t know.

“What?” you snap. You’re not sure if you outrank them or if they outrank you or if that even matters right now. It probably does.

The one who called your name doesn’t seem to care. They ignore your tone and pull up a chair, kicking the other empty one out for their companion. You scowl at them and they ignore that too.

“You were at that Grineer base, right? The one where the Tenno showed up?”

The other crewman rolls their eyes. “For fucks sake, I told you no one’s ever seen one of those things and lived to tell the fuckin’ tale. And Corp’s certainly never _hired one_.”

“And _I’m_ tellin’ _you_ Deri was _there_. Saw the deployment records and a purchase order myself!”

The two interlopers start arguing between themselves. You can feel a headache starting to form and you down the rest of your drink, hoping for either a miracle cure or unconsciousness and knowing you’ll get neither. A nearby auto-attendant registers your signal for another drink with a winking of lights.

“What will it take to make the two of you go away?”

The one who clearly loves to talk, and who just loudly, and _publicly_ , admitted to seeing records you assumed would’ve been hidden under a dozen layers of security and perhaps a few jackals answers, “Just tell us what the Tenno was like up close. What was it like bein’ that close to death itself?”

The auto-attendant arrives with your drink and extracts the credits from your account before drifting away. You sigh again and stare into the gently swirling blue liquid. There are a few different ways you can handle the situation and you’re fairly certain you won’t enjoy any of them. You knock back half the drink and consider your options. You could lie, certainly. Tell ‘em you didn’t see anything, tell ‘em where they could shove their questions, and just head back to your shift. Or… you could give ‘em what they want. Tell them exactly what it was like watching the monster from your nightmares cut a swath of death through the base, only coming out alive because you were lucky enough to be on the good side of the contract.

The loud one props their elbows on the table and slides something over. “Look, I’ll make it worth your while.”

You pick up the chip and your brows arch as you see how many credits transfer over. 

Fine. Truth it is. 

You polish off your drink and wave over a round for the table. It’s not like you’re low on credits anymore.

“It’s terrifyin’ is what,” you start. 

“Oh, c’mon. You can’t _buy_ a fuckin’ Tenno,” the skeptic scoffs.

You shrug. “You wanna hear it or not?”

“No!”

“Yes!”

You snort before you can help yourself. The drinks arrive and the skeptic seems to go through an internal war before appearing to decide that a free drink is worth a fake story.

“No one told us we were gonna be gettin’ help,” you start again.

* * *

_You’re good at what you do and you know that, but as you listen to the sounds of gunfire and the furious howls of the Grineer outside the control room you refuse to believe you were the most qualified for the job. Surely they could’ve sent someone, anyone, else to this awful base._

_“The base is empty, they said. It’ll be easy to take, they said,” you mutter to yourself as you hurriedly hack through the Grineer security. You’re trying to take control and also keep the Grineer out and it’s easily the most stressful thing you’ve ever done._

_Klaxons start blaring through the base and you flinch like you’ve just been shot._

_“TURN THAT OFF!” someone shouts before their head disappears from a sniper shot from down the hall._

_Panic overrides duty and you scramble for cover, knowing it won’t help in the long run. You close your eyes and count the seconds until death arrives. You make it to 22 before you realize at some point the shouts from the Grineer have changed tone. Less angry, more panicked. Your heart drops into your stomach as you catch one of them yell “Tenno” before their voice cuts off._

_Static rings through your ears before you get a ping from one of your commanders, sitting in their nice, safe office somewhere. “Corp sent the Tenno. Take the base.”_

_Your counting stops as your mind tries to process that sentence._

_Corporate… sent… a Tenno._

_You grab your gun and crawl out from under the console, operating mostly on autopilot. The console is ruined and half melted and your shoulders droop as you realize this means you’ll have to push deeper into the base to get into their systems. You turn, looking for anyone else who might be around, and scream as you come face to chest with a mass of dark metal and blades._

_The Tenno looks at you, watches you scramble back a step, clutching your gun to your chest. It’s taller than you expected, and thinner, but it looks heavy. Both physically, of course, and by the weight of its mere presence. Almost humanoid, but made entirely of angles, ribbons and terror._

* * *

“Ribbons?” the skeptic interrupts. “Now I know you’re makin’ this up. Ain’t no death machine out there runnin’ around covered in ribbons.”

“Hey, shut up, man, it was just gettin’ good!”

The skeptic crosses his arms and slouches back in his seat. “Fine, whatever. Finish your ghost story.”

“Right, right… where was I…”

* * *

_It was made entirely of angles and ribbons and terror. Gunmetal grey, cut through with dark blue designs, gold accents, and the deep, wet red of blood and gore._

_It nods its head at the door, more communication than you ever thought possible from a machine, and launches itself forward. A long, vicious glaive sparks into existence as it runs and you hear all manner of cacophony come from the next room. Confused, but rallying cries in your own tongue, frantic shouts from the Grineer, gunfire that decreases in volume with every dull thud of a body hitting the floor._

_You remember what’s expected of you and take a steadying breath before hurrying along after. You’re not sure what the Tenno was hired for, but you’re pretty sure following its trail of destruction will get you to a new control center._

_You hate how many rooms and halls you go through that aren’t a control center you can hide in, but it gives you plenty of time to watch the Tenno in action._

_For as heavy as it looks, it’s impossibly agile. You’re not sure it’s properly obeying the laws of physics as it leaps and bounds from place to place, nimbly dodging Corpus agents as it targets the Grineer with the full force of its destruction._

_You can see a rifle attached to its back, but it seems to greatly prefer the glaive. Twirling the blade around with practiced ease as it switches from carving through enemies to deflecting projectiles and back. Its impressive and hypnotic and you nearly crash into the back of the Tenno because you forgot to watch anything other than the blade. It seems to glance back before you’re both thrown back by a massive bombardment from above._

_Your ears are ringing and you can barely see the airborne hellion through the stars in your vision. The Tenno staggers to its feet and stumbles away, drawing the fire and taking the full force of another bombardment as it finally draws its rifle. The rounds rip through the hellion and it falls with a sickening crunch._

_You pull yourself up, using the nearest available surface as a support. Your weapon is gone, you’re not sure where, so instead you look to the Tenno. You’re not sure if it was just out of curiosity or if some part of you thought it would give you guidance or a new weapon or both._

_With the amount of damage it must have just taken, you expect to see missing plating and exposed wires and maybe a ruined limb or two. You’ve seen plenty of damaged robotics in your time and believe the Tenno to be nothing different - more murderous than most moas you’ve met, to be sure, but robotic all the same. What you don’t expect is to glimpse something almost like flesh deep within the holes in the plating. It doesn’t bleed, but you know what you’re seeing isn’t wires and cabling._

* * *

“Bullshit.” They both interrupt you at the same time.

The skeptic sounds irritated and the talker sounds almost awed. You suppose hearing about a robot full of meat would be both unbelieveable and fascinating to the right person. You shrug and take a drink while you wait to see if they’ll leave or if they’re determined to stay and listen.

The talker gestures for you to keep going. “Well??”

* * *

_The Tenno looks down at its own damaged body for a moment before it slams a foot into the ground and gestures sharply with one hand. A rippling green field of energy swirls around it before radiating out away from it. The pain in your own body dulls and you watch as metal regrows - regrows! - across the holes in the Tenno’s plating. If you were still holding your gun you would have dropped it._

_The death machine… can heal._

_It stows its rifle, picks up its glaive, and sets off again. You follow, looking for any sort of weapon you can take to replace the gun you lost. The klaxons are still ringing throughout the base and you watch as a massive blast door slams shut in front of you, status lights winking to the Grineer standard sickly yellow. The Tenno seems to bristle in irritation and jams a spike deep into the control panel at the side of the door._

_The lull in the combat gives you a moment to remember you’re not as helpless as you thought. You may not have a gun, but you do have a ratel mat. Provided it hasn’t been broken in the chaos._

_The console beeps and you look up from where you’re digging into your pack. The door slides up and away and you see it leads to a balcony in some sort of multistory room. You can hear alarmed shouts of Grinner echoing around below and you toss the mat out onto the balcony. It sparks to life and the first ratel unfolds from it and you feel unspeakable joy. The Tenno briefly glances down before looking back out the door. Then, as though it just processed what it saw on the floor, leaps back while swinging its glaive down as a club, sending the ratel flying into the wall._

_You watch the ratel hit the wall and clatter to the floor before slowly turning your gaze to the Tenno. It too, is staring at the ratel on the floor, before it looks at you and freezes. You wonder if it’s malfunctioning or if whatever mind powers it has decided it would rather kill everything in the base._

_The first ratel picks itself up and rolls off out the door as the second unfolds itself from the mat. The Tenno looks down and watches the ratel form and join its companion in going through the doorway. It relaxes its stance and looks at you again._

_Your mouth stumbles through an apology before your brain realizes what’s happening and the Tenno dashes off in tandem with the third ratel. It takes a while before you follow as you convince yourself that no, this is not a terrible dream, and yes, you did just startle and then apologize to a Tenno nightmare._

_By the time you make it to the lower level the hangar is empty, save for the Tenno, a few bloodied but living Corpus and a whole mess of Grineer corpsesl. Relief floods you as you see a bank of computers in a room off to the side and realize you can finally do your job and then hopefully go home and try to forget this ever happened._

_You duck through the doorway and glance out at the Tenno once more. It takes a moment to do more of its own hacking and you briefly wonder what information it’s after and why, before deciding you’d rather not know, actually. That done, it sprints for the opposite wall and uses the vertical surface as a springboard to land on a different upper balcony. It disappears out of sight and you find yourself hoping to never see it again. You’re certain if you meet again it won’t be as allies._

* * *

The talker sits back and smacks their friend in the arm. “See? I told ya!” They shake their head in amazement. “What I wouldn’t give to see a Tenno fightin’ for us.”

They start arguing amongst themselves again and you pinch the bridge of your nose. Your alarm pings almost immediately after and you groan quietly, wishing you didn’t have to return to your shift with these newly refreshed memories and pounding headache.

“Well this has been… thrilling,” you say as you stand. They ignore you and you leave them to their arguing.

As you walk, your mind wanders and you can’t help but wonder about the Tenno. What price had to be paid to buy a Tenno’s allegiance? What the hell _was it_? How long did it take that one to go back to being a universal specter of death?

You punch in your keys to the control center and drop heavily into your seat.

You wonder if the Tenno ever wondered about you.

**Author's Note:**

> boy wouldn't Deri be surprised to learn the price that was paid was three (3!) entire fieldron


End file.
